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Vietnam (WOD)
Vietnam officially known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. Overview The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, from 111 BC to AD 939. An independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese imperial dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War and in 1945 President Hồ Chí Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France. After the defeat of France in 1954, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, with heavy intervention by the United States on the side of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. The war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vampire: The Masquerade (...) Werewolf: The Apocalypse Before the American War, most of the central and northern highlands of Vietnam were untamed jungles inhabited by isolated groups of humans, an abundance of animals — and the hengeyokai. The war brought soldiers, napalm and poisonous defoliants like the infamous Agent Orange that devastated the jungle and the shapeshifters who lived there, displacing Khan, Tengu, and Zhong Lung alike. The Blights created during the fighting last to this day, long after the war has ended. Within the past 15 years, the costal cities have swelled as a result of massive amounts of industrialization; the amount of pollution spewing into the air and water has increased at a similar rate. The nation's already large population has doubled since the end of the war. Today, the Nezumi remain by far the most populous of the Vietnamese hengeyokai, with many hundreds of their kind in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. They do their best to try to curb urban populations with all manner of diseases but advances in medicine now protect even the urban poor from most contagious diseases. In response, the Nezumi work with Ratkin elsewhere in the world to develop new and ever more deadly plagues. Vietnam's rich coastal farmland also has a dense and growing human population, and the Nezumi's diseases take root far more easily in these poorer rural areas. Here, they have slowed the growth of Vietnam's population — but not the cities. For the past decade, Vietnamese Beast Courts have faced another threat: tourism. More than six million tourists a year travel to the previously unspoiled parts of Vietnam, forcing the government to develop more and more of the wilderness to cater or them. Bakemono often enter Vietnam disguised as tourists and attempt to spread corruption to the Dragon Nests that are close to new tourist hotspots. Those Bakemono who can pass as Sunset People have an even easier way to make trouble for the hengeyokai. As long as they make sure that people see them regularly, their sudden disappearance — or grisly murder — will draw attention from foreign governments. In their mountainous jungles, the Khan and the Zhong Lung hear rumors that these visiting Bakemono deliberately travel to the Blights created during the war. Precisely what they want with the Banes that dwell in the poisoned land, none of the hengeyokai can be sure. In truth, these agents of the Wyrm are planning a large coordinated attack on at least a dozen Dragon Nests throughout the north of Vietnam. To soften up the defenders, the Bakemono created in the jungle Blights have started raiding Dragon Nests; many of the local Beast Courts have suffered serious losses in battles with these monsters. Mage: The Ascension (...) References *MTAs: Dragons of the East, p. 15 *W20: Changing Breeds (book), p. 282-283 Category:World of Darkness geography